[Pnews] California protest demands ‘End solitary confinement!’

[Prisoner News]

https://themilitant.com/2018/09/08/california-protest-demands-end-solitary-confinement/ 



  California protest demands ‘End solitary confinement!’

*By Betsey Stone*- 
<https://themilitant.com/issues/vol-82-no-34/>September 17, 2018
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Supporters of the fight to end solitary confinement of inmates in 
California state prisons rallied outside the federal courthouse here 
Aug. 21. Their action was in solidarity with four prisoners — Todd 
Ashker, Arturo Castellanos, George Franco and Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa — 
who have helped lead the ongoing struggle against the barbaric policy. 
They were in a court-ordered meeting with representatives of the 
California Department of Corrections inside the building.

The four were central leaders of hunger strikes and protests that grew 
to include 30,000 prisoners at the high point in 2013. These actions put 
a national spotlight on the abuse of thousands of prisoners held, some 
for decades, with little human contact in 8- by 10-foot windowless 
Security Housing Unit cells known as the SHU.

The four were also plaintiffs in a suit — Ashker vs. Governor of 
California — that won an end to indeterminate-length sentences to 
solitary confinement in California and the release of over 1,400 
prisoners from the SHU.

Despite the success of moving some to general population units, the 
fight is far from over. Many of those released from the SHU have been 
transferred to extremely restrictive conditions in Level IV prisons or 
in Restricted Custody General Population Units, which have conditions 
markedly similar to that in the SHU.

“Our fight is against solitary confinement, no matter what they call it 
or what forms it takes,” Marie Levin, sister of Sitawa Nantambu Jamaa, 
told rally participants. She pointed to a giant banner held by 
protesters saying, “END ALL FORMS OF SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.”

Letters from prisoners held in Level IV and Restricted Custody Units 
were read aloud, describing the denial of social interaction with fellow 
prisoners and lack of educational and job-training programs.

Anne Weills, an attorney in the lawsuit, said the prisoner 
representatives are demanding Todd Ashker, who was thrown back in 
isolation after being held for over three decades in solitary in the SHU 
at Pelican Bay, be released to the general population.

Jamaa and other veterans of the struggle have also experienced 
retaliation, including being returned to solitary on trumped-up charges. 
These frame-ups and isolation are aimed at “our peaceful efforts to 
effect genuine changes,” Jamaa wrote in an article run March 26 in the 
/San Francisco Bay View./

Ashker v. Governor of California was filed in 2012 by the inmates with 
attorneys from the Center for Constitutional Rights. After the hunger 
strikes, state prison officials settled on Sept. 1, 2015. The results 
are monitored by Judge Claudia Wilken of the Northern District Court.

In July, Wilken ruled that California prison authorities were not 
complying with the settlement and ordered the meeting held Aug. 21.

Any gains won in this fight are due to the conduct of the prisoners 
themselves, said Laura Magnani, an activist with the Prisoner Hunger 
Strike Solidarity Coalition, which organized the protest “to their 
vision, courage, and persistence.”

Fundamental to this has been the unity between prisoners of different 
races and origins forged in the struggle. “Our current collective 
movement began in the bowels of Pelican Bay State Prison — SHU — Short 
Corridor, wherein prisoners of all races and various geographical areas 
became openly conscious of what we had in common — rather than what was 
different (divisive),” Ashker wrote last year.

In 2012, the Short Corridor Collective released an “Agreement to End 
Race-Based Hostilities” that called for an end to violence among 
prisoners. Ashker said the prison authorities’ efforts to pit prisoners 
against each other was “the source of our mutual adversary’s 
manipulation tactics — centered on keeping us divided and violent 
towards one another.”

“We must stand together not only for ourselves, but for future 
generations of prisoners,” the four prisoners said in a joint statement 
in 2017 reaffirming the agreement, “so that they don’t have to go 
through the years of torture we had to.”

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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